Standing Committee A

[Miss Ann Widdecombe in the Chair]

Police Reform Bill [Lords]

Ann Widdecombe: I remind members of the Committee that mobile phones and pagers should either function silently or not at all. Our proceedings must not be interrupted by bleeps, rings or whirrs.

John Denham: I beg to move,
 That—
 (1) the Order of the Committee of 23rd May, 2002 be amended as follows—
(a) in sub-paragraph (6) (proceedings to be brought to a conclusion by 1.00pm on Tuesday, 25 June 2002), for the words '', Clauses 38 to 42 and New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Chapter 1 of Part 4'' there shall be substituted the words ''and Clauses 38 to 42''; and
(b) in sub-paragraph (7) (proceedings to be concluded by 7.00pm on that day), after the words ''proceedings on'' there shall be inserted the words ''New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Chapter 1 of Part 4,''.
 (2) the Standing Committee recommends that 1 1/2 days be allotted for consideration and Third reading of the Police Reform Bill [Lords].
 Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 4 - Powers exercisable by police civilians

Annette Brooke: I beg to move amendment No. 66 in page 134, line 19, at end insert
'whom he reasonably suspects to be in possession of an object that is likely to cause harm or injury'.

Ann Widdecombe: With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 67 in page 135, line 3, at end insert
'whom he reasonably suspects to be in possession of an object that is likely to cause harm or injury'.

Annette Brooke: Amendment No. 66 refers to the power of an escort officer to take an arrested person to a police station and amendment No. 67 is concerned with the escort of persons in police detention. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) and I want to insert into the Bill a protective clause. At present, an escort officer has the power to search a person in his lawful custody and retain any items found. My hon. Friend has frequently asked at which point we draw the line because he believes that the provision is a step too far. We are concerned about liberty and direct infringements, and we do not want to go the whole way down such a road.
 The amendment recognises those situations in which a search must be conducted in order to prevent an incident, which might cause harm to the officer or 
 the person in custody. It is logical and it is necessary for the protection of people. The escort officer must reasonably suspect that a person is in possession of an object that is likely to cause harm or injury before being able to carry out such a search. Then—and only then—could a non-intimate search take place. The amendment would add basic criteria to the Bill, which should be in place before a search can be made. It would result in the best of both worlds. It would safeguard the rights of the citizen, but would allow for a search to be made to protect the escort officer.

John Denham: Unfortunately, I was absent from the first sitting that you chaired, Miss Widdecombe, so I should now like to say how pleased I am to see you in the Chair rather than where the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) is sitting in Committee.
 The amendments would restrict the powers of escort officers to conduct a search because they will confine the grounds to situations in which escort officers reasonably suspect a person to be in a possession of an object that is likely to cause harm or injury. The Government will resist them because they would hamper the ability of escort officers to carry out their duties. Consequently, there would be little point in designating non-police officers as escort officers in the first place and that would undermine our aim of freeing-up police officers for other duties. There is a good reason why escort officers who have detainees in their lawful custody should have the same powers as constables to search those persons under subsection (6A) of section 54 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and to seize anything found on such a search under subsection (6B) of section 54 of the Act. After all, escort officers are under a duty to prevent people whom they are escorting from escaping and are responsible for the safety of those in their custody. 
 It is important that an escort officer is able to conduct a search to ascertain whether the person in his custody has on him anything that he could use to cause physical injury to himself or another person, damage property, interfere with evidence or assist escape. The ability should not be restricted by a reasonable suspicion of possession test. 
 As an example, an escort officer might escort a detained person from one police station to another who might have on them a seemingly harmless item such as a mobile phone, which might be used to assist in organising an escape. Under the amendment, the escort officer would be unable to seize the item, because they would be unable to conduct a search, and because of the nature of the item itself. 
 An even more serious situation would be when the person being escorted has a concealed knife. The officer might not have reasonable grounds to suspect that a knife is being carried until it has been pulled on him or another person, by which time it is too late. 
 Given that police officers do not routinely search every person they escort, that raises the question of on what grounds and on what basis police officers who exercise the power carry out a search. In practice, I am told, police officers tend to exercise their PACE powers by carrying out a risk assessment. They would not 
 search every person, but there would be some in whose case they thought that the risk was higher and a search would be carried out. That seems a reasonable approach. That does not necessarily pass a strict legal test of reasonable suspicion. They would consider the nature of the individual whom they were escorting. 
 To apply a test, whether to police officers or escort officers, of reasonable suspicion, would unnecessarily constrain their powers. It is far better for those escorting detained persons to have the scope to search whenever they are worried that certain articles might be concealed and about whether articles could be used for any of the purposes set out in section 54(4)(a). That is the position for police officers. There is no evidence that that power is misused or wrongly applied, and I see no basis for a more restrictive approach for civilian escort officers. On that basis, I ask the Committee to resist the amendments.

Nick Hawkins: On this occasion, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, I and other Conservative Members agree more with the Minister than with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke). On many occasions, we have shared the views of Liberal Democrat Members in trying to amend the Bill, but, for the purely practical reasons that the Minister set out, the amendment would unduly hamper the work that such officers will be asked to do.
 Those of us who, like me, have spent time working as a barrister, visiting cells and seeing the work of those carrying out detention and escort duties, believe that it is essential that people designated for such work have the opportunity to do searches properly, without being unduly hampered, both for their own protection and, as the Minister explained, for the preservation of law and order more generally. Although we understand entirely the genuine motivation of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole in tabling the amendment, on this occasion, we cannot support her because we agree with the Minister.

Annette Brooke: I listened carefully to the Minister, and on the basis that he came up with an argument that was not only persuasive but right, in as far as our amendment had not covered circumstances in which someone was carrying something that would aid escape, I cannot, being a reasonable person, say other than that seems perfectly reasonable.I shall beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, because I accept the reasonableness of the argument, but I still believe that we are going down a road that I am not convinced that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes and I want to go down.
 I ask the Minister to consider the guidance that should be given to civilians. He ably described how a police constable would carry out a risk assessment, but for someone with far more limited training, an adequate risk assessment is difficult to carry out on the spur of the moment. We have spoken quite a lot about training and that would be of particular importance in this matter. On the subject of guidance, there should be 
 more instances when the search could take place, but I am not happy with a carte blanche. I put it to the Minister that a line needs to be drawn somewhere, but not in the place suggested under the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Amendment made: No. 206, in page 134, line 33, leave out 'under section 35'.—[Mr. Denham.]

John Denham: : I beg to move amendment No. 207, in page 134, line 37, after second 'that' insert 'or any other police'.

Ann Widdecombe: With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 208 to 211.

John Denham: The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said that we are going down a road that she is not happy with. The amendments address the question of how long that road is. As hon. Members will realise, the Bill as drafted allows escort officers to carry out their duties within only one police force area. Quite reasonably, the police put it to us that there is no reason why, if someone was arrested in Northumbria but was wanted for questioning in Surrey, a civilian escort officer should not escort him. The amendments to schedule 4 paragraph 31 would allow designated escort officers to escort detainees between police force areas. The amendments are purely practical, and I commend them to the Committee.

Nick Hawkins: Welcome back to the chairmanship of our proceedings, Miss Widdecombe.
 The amendments are entirely sensibly. The police made similar representations to us. The amendments are a necessary improvement to the Bill, and we are pleased that the Government tabled them. 
 Amendment agreed to. 
 Amendments made: No. 208, in page 134, line 38, leave out 
'a place in that area that is' 
and insert 'any other place'. 
 No. 209, in page 134, line 40, after 'area' insert 
'or in another police area'.
 No. 210, in page 134, line 40, at end insert— 
 '(1A) Where a designation applies this paragraph to any person, that person may be authorised by the custody officer for any designated police station outside the relevant police area to escort a person in police detention— 
 (a) from that police station to a designated police station in that area; or 
 (b) from that police station to any place in that area specified by the custody officer and either back to that police station or on to another police station (whether in that area or elsewhere).'.
 No. 211, in page 134, line 42, after '(1)' insert 'or (1A)'. 
 No. 212, in page 135, line 25, after '35' insert 
'or (Police powers for contracted-out staff)'.
 No. 213, in page 135, line 29, at end insert— 
 '(1A) In this Schedule ''a designation'' means a designation under section 35.
 (1B) In Parts 3 and 4 of this Schedule ''a designation'' also includes a designation under section (Police powers for contracted-out staff).'.—[Mr. Denham.]
 Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 36 - Community safety accreditation schemes

Norman Baker: I beg to move amendment No. 144, in page 35, line 37, leave out 'consult with' and insert 'obtain the approval of'.

Ann Widdecombe: With this we may discuss the following: Government amendment No. 214.
 Amendment No. 145, in page 35, line 38, after 'and', insert 
'before giving such approval, the police authority in question must consult'.
 Amendment No. 146, in page 36, line 23, at end insert— 
 '(6A) It shall be the responsibility of any police authority which has approved a scheme under this section to undertake a full review of the workings of the scheme 12 months after its establishment and in particular to— 
 (a) seek the views of the principal local authority for the area; and 
 (b) monitor the impact of the scheme on public confidence in the force maintained by that authority.'.

Norman Baker: I apologise for being marginally late this morning. I was accompanying a school in my constituency on a walking bus, which arrived on time. Unfortunately, the train from Lewes to London did not, hence my slight delay.
 It would help the Committee if I were to set out briefly our vision for policing in so far as it affects accredited officers, who are the subject of the clause and the amendment. My colleagues and I have said on several occasions that we would like a system that is as simple and accountable as possible. One of our concerns is that the arrangements that the Government would like to put in place would lead to myriad bodies with unclear responsibilities and differing powers. The public would not know where they stood. 
 We are keen to have a two-tier system. One tier would consist of properly trained full-time—and part-time, if necessary—police officers and specials. The second would consist of everyone else, and would include CSOs, accredited community safety officers and traffic wardens, all of whom would have the same powers. That would have the benefit of simplicity and accountability. However, that is not what is proposed in the Bill. Through the amendment, we are trying to make the best of a bad job. I hope that the Minister does not think that it is unduly impolite to put it in those terms, but that is how we think of it. 
 Amendment No. 144 seeks to increase accountability. I will not speak for long on the subject because we discussed it when we considered the accountability of CSOs. In some respects, accredited officers are one stage further removed in the accountability process than CSOs proper. It seems from the Bill that virtually anyone can accredit officers to do virtually anything in any area. Although that is 
 a slight exaggeration, there is considerably more flexibility in this scheme than is afforded to the arrangements for CSOs in previous clauses. 
 The Government propose that accredited officers will be employable by the private sector and will operate in the interests of the private sector in many ways. We see that in more detail in Amendment No. 12, in the next group, which increases the need for accountability and approval by the democratically accountable police authority. That is why amendment 144 seeks to require the chief of police to obtain approval from the police authority rather than simply consulting it. Otherwise, the following scenario is possible. A group of people, a private company that may be controversial in some respects, may wish to have accredited officers. The chief of police may agree and even though the police authority may be wholly opposed, it could not do very much about it. 
 As the Minister said last week—and I agree—any chief officer would be foolish to go down that road against the clear wishes of the police authority. Nevertheless, the Bill as drafted would allow that to happen. It is better to prevent errors and problems than trying to correct them subsequently—perhaps by getting rid of chief officers using the wide powers that the Minister is giving himself. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to that argument. 
 I welcome Government Amendment No. 214, which increases consultation. It seems to go further than our amendment No. 145, so I have no problem with it. Amendment No. 146 seeks a review period after 12 months. The Government propose to embark on a new form of policing that is a radical departure. It involves the private sector far more than previously and involves a new tier of officers or wardens, or whatever the public comes to call them. It also involves a range of different and new powers for people who did not have them before. Under those circumstances, it is not unreasonable to have a requirement to stop and take stock after 12 months, and see whether the scheme is working. 
 We should see whether the scheme has delivered a safer environment. Do people feel better on the streets? Has it dealt with the problems of vandalism and disturbance that we all want to see tackled? Or, has it led to a withdrawal of police in favour of second tier officers, or whatever the official term will turn out to be? Has it led to problems for those people in their interface with the public? Has it led to the police being called to deal with more argy-bargy between accredited officers and members of the public? In other words, has it exacerbated the situation that it is meant to deal with? 
 The latter is a pessimistic scenario, and the optimistic one may turn out to be true—doubtless that is what the Minister will argue. Either way, I am sure that he will accept that the scheme is a radical departure. Under such circumstances, it is not unreasonable to ask for a review after 12 months, which I hope would involve not only the police authority but the community at large. Indeed, if the Minister is right and the officers will be welcome in the 
 community, he should welcome a review, because it would help cement the relationship, ensure that the foundations that have been built are secure, and that the roots go deeper into the ground. 
 It is not unreasonable to ask for a review. In many ways, to refuse it would be a sign of weakness and a lack of confidence that the system will work. For those reasons, I hope that the Minister will accept the logic of a review. At various junctures in their contributions to the Bill, the Conservatives have suggested pilot schemes. In a sense, our amendment would make this a pilot scheme to be reviewed after 12 months. We should proceed carefully, slowly and with proper monitoring procedures rather than go hell for leather and regret mistakes afterwards.

Nick Hawkins: My party has more sympathy with some of what the hon. Member for Lewes has said on this matter than with several of his other proposals. At the end of his remarks, he rightly stressed that Conservative Committee members have repeatedly said that this entire new system should be properly piloted. If we were to persuade the Government to go down the route that we have consistently suggested of having a few pilot schemes that are sufficient to assess the system, it would be desirable to have a review of those schemes. Therefore, we have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has said about reviews.
 However, we are concerned that many of those who have been looking at the way that community safety schemes have been operating, and the way that the Government's existing system of links between police authorities and local authorities are working, feel that there is a danger that the whole thing could be consulted to death. One can have too much of a good thing, and there is a lot of feeling—particularly among Conservatives in the local authority world—that so much consulting is going on that not much action can be taken. Therefore, we have less sympathy with the suggestion that everything must be consulted on, and approved of, before there is any action. 
 However, we appreciate that the hon. Members for Lewes and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole have genuine motives for proposing the amendments, and we will listen with interest to what the Minister says about them. The Bill talks about police authorities being consulted, and that might not make much difference in practice. The Liberal Democrats propose that the Bill should specify that there must be prior approval: if there were a big difference between having a consultation and having to obtain prior approval, that might indicate that there is something seriously wrong with the relationship between the chief officer and his police authority, because if a chief officer is going to be consulting anyway, he might not be willing to go ahead if the result of that is unfavourable. 
 I accept that it makes things much more explicit if the Bill refers specifically to prior approval. However, we have worries about issues such as consultation to death and consultation with everybody. Many of us have come across situations in which the views of the majority party in a local authority about the best way 
 to move forward are not in accordance with those of the chief constable, or many members of the police authority. We would not want the requirement for still further consultation between the police authority and the local authority to strangle the whole thing at birth, and to lead to a log-jam. Perhaps the Minister will refer to some of those points? 
 We have much sympathy with what the Liberal Democrats have to say on reviewing, but we also want the Government to move much further in our direction by agreeing that the new system should be properly piloted first.

Annette Brooke: The three amendments strengthen the whole concept by tying the police authority into the tripartite system—or the whole picture.
 Although amendment No. 144 is crucial, I shall specifically talk about amendment No. 145. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said that one can consult too much, and there is some truth in that. However, the scheme's objective is to establish neighbourhood policing, which is about involving all of the relevant authorities. It is about everybody working together to look at the whole picture, so that the reasons behind, for example, antisocial behaviour can be understood. It is isolationist to have individual wardens chasing litter without any communication about how that problem can be solved; the requirement to consult strengthens local crime and disorder partnerships. The key to success is to change behaviour, as well as to stop it. That is why consultation is helpful.

Kevan Jones: I do not think that anyone would have a problem with consultation because that is how to get the best policies. However, the Liberal Democrats propose a veto on the actions of the chief constable. Is it not a radical departure from the tripartite arrangements that we have previously discussed if the police authority and other parties may veto the operational independence of the chief constable? Is the new Liberal Democrat line to tie the hands of chief constables?

Annette Brooke: My background as a teacher makes me want to come out with a comment, but I shall try to bite it back. I made it clear that I was addressing amendment No. 145. That is about consultation, but not holding anything up or seeking approval. I addressed that in such detail that I cannot see any problems.
 I reinforce the point that amendment No. 145 would strengthen a local crime and disorder partnership. We should examine the issue holistically rather than go around saying, ''Stop, stop, stop.'' We should change behaviour as well.

John Denham: The issues are fairly straightforward. Let me deal first with consultation. There is no question but that the chief officer should consult with the police authority and, indeed, local authorities. Government amendments will tidy up the definition of the principal local authority. Undoubtedly, consultation will occur among crime and disorder reduction partnerships, local authorities and the police
 authority when an accreditation scheme is proposed. However, that is not the issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) pointed out, the issue is whether a police authority should have a veto on an operational decision by a chief constable. We rehearsed the arguments on that last week when we discussed community support officers. Consultation should take place, but a police authority should not have a veto, and we resist the amendment on that basis.
 I come to the question of review. The process of drawing up the annual policing plan, which involves consultation among the local community, the chief officer and the police authority, provides an appropriate vehicle to review the success and progress of an accreditation scheme after not only the first 12 months, but every year. I am reluctant to write a requirement for a separate process to do the same thing into the Bill because police officers and others would be diverted to that activity. However, I agree with the hon. Member for Lewes that it would be helpful to examine how the accreditation scheme worked in practice and to find out whether there were any problems and whether the scheme was delivering its intended results. It is appropriate to do that through the annual policing plan. We should avoid having a bureaucratic responsibility to do something different. 
 A couple of things should be clarified, and we might be able to debate them at greater length when we consider other amendments. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lewes for setting out his vision. We shall resist the idea that accredited officers who work for non-police employers should simply be merged with community support officers who work with the police. There is a good reason for having a differential between the powers and responsibilities of those officers because their accountability is clearly different. 
 The hon. Gentleman said in his opening remarks that it appears that almost anybody may accredit a scheme. He continued to say that that was a slight exaggeration—I think that the expression that he was looking for was ''a total travesty''. The only person who may accredit a scheme is the chief officer. The chief officer is constrained by the requirements themselves and by whether the employer of the relevant group of employees wants to participate in an accredited scheme. The chief officer's power is by no means untrammelled. Nobody except the chief officer may agree that an accreditation scheme should exist in an area.

George Osborne: Does the Minister envisage that most of the neighbourhood warden schemes that currently exist will become accredited schemes over a period of time? Alternatively, does he expect a two-tier system of schemes in which some are accredited and some are not?

John Denham: If I can rely on the hon. Gentleman's use of the phrase ''over a period of time'', I anticipate that the majority of neighbourhood warden schemes and street warden schemes will come within accreditation. It is too early to be sure how many such schemes will take advantage of additional powers,
 such as issuing fixed penalty notices or dealing with alcohol, and at what stage that will happen. For example, I suspect that the power to remove abandoned vehicles will be taken up widely at a fairly early stage. When considering other CSO powers that we discussed last week, people will look at those who first try using the powers to see whether they work, and they will make a judgment on whether the powers are appropriate for their area.
 The advantages to an area of having a kite mark standard through which people who carry out the role have a common badge and accreditation system and a statutory framework to link people to radio communications and information systems lead me to believe that the take up of accreditation will be widespread over a period of time, which was the phrase that the hon. Gentleman used. The public will welcome that.

George Osborne: Will the Minister clarify further that no pressure will be put on local authorities and other organisations to push them into accreditation even over a period of time? Many schemes do not currently want accreditation or to be nationalised as part of a great national accreditation scheme.

John Denham: There will not be pressure other than that which comes from the spread of good practice and knowledge of what works throughout the country. There will not be a national accreditation scheme because the schemes will operate at force level, chief officer level or even within part of a force. My impression—this is not from a scientific study—after talking to representatives of schemes throughout the country is that the concept of becoming accredited and having a formal legitimacy as part of the extended police family is widely welcomed.
 We have always acknowledged that the greater debate is about the extent to which additional powers should be taken up as part of the accreditation system. It is possible to have an accreditation scheme that examines issues such as common training, common insignia and shared communications without adopting the full range of formal powers in the Bill. 
 I should make a final point. We are actively considering tabling a further amendment on Report relating to consultation on accreditation schemes. It would relate to a consultation right for the Mayor of London because of his role in several London issues. Obviously, I shall write to hon. Members if that is likely, but I thought that it would be helpful to flag up our current thinking.

Norman Baker: I am sure that the Minister's last point is a sensible idea. We look forward to his amendment on Report, although I am not sure whether fixed penalty notices should be given for falling off balconies. We shall examine the details of the amendment closely.
 I turn to the Minister's response to the amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and I tabled. I did not utter a travesty, to use his words. I used poetic licence—poetic 
 exaggeration—to make a point and underline my worry about the direction in which the process is going. 
 It is insufficient to say that everything in the Bill is hunky-dory and that we need have no worries. The Minister conceded that there is a case for a review but that he does not want to build in a formal 12-month period. The danger with his informal approach is that areas in which the system works well—if such areas will exist—will be keen to have a review to pat themselves on the back and demonstrate that everything functions brilliantly and the decision to implement the system was right. An area in which the system does not work well might be tempted not to have a review in case it throws up problems, and the area might hope that if it carries on, the problems will go away and a review could be held when it would give the right results. I do not think that the Minister's informal approach will necessarily work. However, as the issues have been exhaustively discussed, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Amendment made: No. 214, in page 35, line 38, leave out 'and the principal local authority for that area' and insert '; and 
(b) every local authority any part of whose area lies within the police area. 
 (3A) In subsection (3)(b) ''local authority'' means— 
 (a) in relation to England, a district council, a London borough council, the Common Council of the City of London or the Council of the Isles of Scilly; and 
 (b) in relation to Wales, a county council or a county borough council.'.—[Mr. Denham.]

Norman Baker: I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 36, line 11, leave out from 'with' to end of line 14 and insert,
'any local authority falling within the police authority area'.

Ann Widdecombe: With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 13, in page 36, line 15, leave out 'employers' and insert 'local authorities'.
 No. 14, in page 36, line 19, leave out 'employers' and insert 'local authorities'. 
 No. 15, in page 36, line 23, at end add— 
 '(7) In this section ''local authority'' means the relevant local authority, that is to say— 
 (a) in relation to England, a county council, a district council, a London borough council, a metropolitan council, a unitary council or the Common Council of the City of London; and 
 (b) in relation to Wales, a county council or a county borough council.'.
 No. 16, in clause 37, page 36, line 27, leave out 'any employer' and insert 'a local authority'. 
 No. 17, in page 36, line 28, after 'employees', insert 'or sub-contractors'. 
 No. 18, in page 36, line 28, leave out 'employer' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 19, in page 36, line 30, leave out 'person' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 21, in page 36, line 31, after 'employee', insert 'or sub-contractor'.
 No. 22, in page 36, line 31, leave out 'employer' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 23, in page 36, line 36, leave out paragraph (a). 
 No. 24, in page 37, line 8, leave out 'employer' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 25, in page 37, line 17, leave out second 'person' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 26, in page 37, line 18, leave out 'whom' and insert 'which'. 
 No. 27, in page 37, line 20, at end add— 
 '(9) In this section ''local authority'' means the relevant local authority, that is to say— 
 (a) in relation to England, a county council, a district council, a London borough council, a Metropolitan borough council, a unitary council or the Common Council of the City of London; and 
 (b) in relation to Wales, a county council or a county borough council.'.
 No. 36, in clause 38, page 37, line 37, after 'time', insert, 
'(and in case of accreditation under section 37, after consultation with the local authority)'.
 No. 37, in page 37, line 43, leave out 'employer' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 38, in page 38, line 2, after 'employees', insert 'or sub-contractors'. 
 No. 39, in page 38, line 2, leave out 'person' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 40, in page 38, line 8, leave out first 'employer' and insert 'local authority'. 
 No. 41, in page 38, line 8, leave out 'or employer'.

Norman Baker: We are addressing many amendments, but most of them are consequential to amendment No. 12, so I shall focus on the principle of accountability.
 During the Parliament that ended in 1997, I imagine that this sort of amendment would have been eagerly tabled by Labour hon. Members. They would have been frothing at the bit to object to the Conservative Government's introduction of powers to extend policing to the private sector without accountability. They would have leapt up and down about such a proposal. However, I suspect that they will all vote against my proposal to put controls on how far the private sector can be involved in policing in a way that I regard as unaccountable—Labour Members have not yet convinced me that that is not the case. 
 Committee members from all parties have frequently said that accountability is a key issue. The central question is whether it is right or in the public interest to extend policing powers—albeit relatively minor ones—to those who are not directly accountable to the police, or to an elected body such as a local authority, or even to housing associations, or other bodies that have pseudo-respectability. 
 The Minister envisages that a private company can, for its own reasons, deploy members of staff, who are answerable to it and acting in its interests, to undertake what is effectively public policing. There may be an argument for the accreditation of individuals, where they are solely on private property—for example, in supermarkets—although whether they should have police powers is another matter.
 We are all in favour of bringing up the standards of those who act as security guards, or in similar capacities. However, we are talking about a different matter when, first, they are given police powers and, secondly, they may be operating in public areas. 
 Newhaven town centre, in my constituency, is privately owned, apart from the high street that runs through the middle of it. It is not covered; it looks like any other highway. However, I presume that the owners of Newhaven town centre will be able to apply for—and would receive—authorisation from the chief constable for an accredited scheme to be operative there. If that were to happen, if someone was cycling in the town centre in an area that they regarded to be public land, an individual who was employed by a private company—and who was, predominantly, looking after its interests, rather than the public's—would be able to stop them and give them a fixed penalty ticket for riding on a footway, or for consuming alcohol, or for any of the other categories of powers that are set out in schedule 5. 
 They include the power to require the name and address of a person who is acting in an antisocial manner. The Minister has, under pressure, withdrawn the right of accredited persons to detain people, and I welcome that, but that does not go far enough. His current line is inconsistent, because he now proposes to allow these people to require a name and address, but not to give them any powers to enforce that. It would be better if they did not have that power because, at present, there is no sanction if someone says, ''Get lost.'' 
 There could be a situation in which a private company has interests divergent from those of the public, and rather than acting in the public interest such people would act in the interests of the company concerned. The type of restrictions that they wish to put in place and the sort of behaviour that they wish to engender within the area of the scheme in which they are operating, may not be ones that the public at large would wish to see. However, having got past the hurdle of the chief constable, the private organisation would be able to have the powers. 
 The chief constable is the only publicly accountable safeguard within the scheme because the Minister has rejected our view that the local police authority should be able to determine whether the scheme should be set up. We are relying on one person—the chief constable—to ensure that private individuals who have police powers and act in a private company's interests are also acting in the public interest. To some degree, that is policing for profit. 
 I draw the Minister's attention to the view of the Police Federation of England and Wales. He may choose to paint it as one of self-interest, but they are police officers on the ground and know the realities of policing better than either the Minister or myself—they fill a space at it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The federation says that it is totally opposed to the powers conferred in the Bill on accredited safety officers. It believes that the public will be even more confused about the role and powers of ACSOs, and 
 that the involvement of the private sector opens up a series of nightmare scenarios, including infiltration by those minded to further criminal activities. 
 We have discussed the view that arrangements for handling complaints against ACSOs lack transparency and accountability, which the federation also believes. It is concerned that chief officers could also end up facing civil action arising out of ACSO schemes. 
 The federation raises serious concerns. Why does the Minister not envisage a system of policing in which police powers are enforced by people directly accountable to the police or to a local authority? When we discussed CSOs in an earlier debate, the Minister was keen to say that their powers were comparable to local authority powers. We did not necessarily buy that argument, but he raised, by way of defence, the powers of environmental health officers, trading standards officers or planning officers going on to sites to look at planning applications. The difference between those three and the scheme proposed is that they are all accountable to the local authority. At the end of the day, there is a proper complaints system that is publicly accountable. There are elected councillors who will lose their seats if anything goes wrong. There is a local government ombudsman and a system in place that people respect. That will not happen under this arrangement.

Kevan Jones: I am somewhat lost by the argument pursued by the hon. Gentleman. Clearly, the schemes would have to be approved by the chief constable and their effectiveness monitored. The amendment seems to imply that the safeguard of democracy is somehow to have them under the control of the local authority. The conclusion of the argument would be that the police authority should come directly under the same control, or that we should have directly elected police authorities. As he knows, the police authority is not solely made up of councillors, and the only way to have the accountability that he seeks would be to have them under control or directly elected.

Norman Baker: That is a red herring, although I do not know whether it is a deliberate or well-meaning one. The Government recognise that there is a major role for local authorities in policing. They introduced crime and disorder partnerships. I give credit to the Government for that good idea, which seems to be working well. It combines the benefit of police experience and professionalism with the opportunity for locally elected councillors who know their patches well to have an input into what happens on the streets. It works well and I give the Government credit.
 However, both those elements are accountable and the hon. Gentleman misses the point that what is proposed comes outside the crime and disorder partnership—it is at one stage removed. There may well be arguments about how the police authority is constructed—whether it should be partly elected, and what the democratic accountability should be—but that is a separate issue to that proposed today. We are discussing the accountability of privately employed people having police powers.

Kevan Jones: Such people come under the control of the chief constable. Let us imagine that the chief constable was accountable to the local authority. Surely that will create confusion. The hon. Gentleman is proposing that the policing in an area should be politicised.

Norman Baker: The concept of policing that I set out at greater length on Second Reading would have been more simple and accountable than what is proposed in the Bill. People who exercised low-level police powers would be subject to local authority control, but they would have to go through a police-approved scheme. The chief constable would have a big say in such matters through the crime and disorder partnership. Such a concept is my preferred vision. Because it is absent, I am trying to make the best of Bill as it is drafted.
 The Minister will have to deal with the fact that the only gatekeeper who will ensure that the process of private company individuals having police powers will work is the chief constable. I am sure that chief constables will look carefully at whatever scheme is proposed and that they and the police authority will do their best to monitor the situation. They are being dealt a weak hand under the Bill, as a result of which public accountability will suffer. 
 All political parties in the House can sign up to the majority of the Bill. It will lead to an improvement in policing.However, if the Minister introduces an element that does not command public support—lack of accountability is one possibility—that may undermine confidence in the rest of the Bill. I do not want that to happen nor I am sure does the Minister. We are concerned about a matter of principle, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reconsider those provisions that I consider are dangerous and ill-founded.

James Paice: I, too, welcome you back to the Chair, Miss Widdecombe. It will not come as a surprise either to the hon. Member for Lewes or to other members of the Committee that we do not wholly agree that the accredited schemes should operate only for local authority employees. We are not favourably inclined to such amendments. However, the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to issues that are of concern to us, particularly that of accountability.
 We are worried about how such schemes will be accountable and how they will be managed, controlled and monitored. The hon. Member for North Durham referred to monitoring, and one of the issues that I want to ask the chief constable—I mean, the Minister—[Interruption.] Everything comes to he who waits. Bearing in mind that the Government are planning to take over the powers of the chief constable, my remark was probably not as Freudian as it appeared. 
 How does the Minister envisage the chief constable knowing what is going on? There are to be codes of practice under clause 40. Will the hon. Gentleman share with us the contents of those codes? Our root 
 worry is who will control the people in a day-to-day fashion. Who will deploy them and decide where they will operate? How will their operations be monitored? Will the local authority be responsible for private sector operations or if such activities were sub-contracted? Will the police be responsible if the local authority were not involved in the sub-contract arrangement? If such officers use the police powers that are given to them under schedule 5, will the use of those powers automatically have to be reported back to the chief constable, along the lines of, ''Here is a civilian who has used the power of a police officer,'' a statement from which events may flow? 
 Those are important and worrying questions to which we do not yet fully know the answers. We have discussed the complaints procedure and the role—or, in this case, lack of role—of the Independent Police Complaints Commission in previous sittings. I hope that the Minister will expand on the few sketchy words in subsection (6) that deal with how the complaints procedure will operate, and will say what element of independence will be involved when a complaint against one of those officers is considered. 
 I am conscious that I am straying slightly from the amendments and into matters that would normally come under a stand part debate. I hope that you will indulge me and allow me to do so, Miss Widdecombe, as the subject fits together with the issue of accountability, which the hon. Member for Lewes made the centrepiece of the amendments under discussion. The issue of training does not even appear in the clause. We are talking about people who will have considerable police powers. Will the Minister tell us about the training given to people before they are allowed to use those powers? 
 When we discussed the previous group of amendments, my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) made a point about the link between accredited community safety schemes and the myriad successful schemes across the country to which hon. Members of all parties have referred both in Committee and on Second Reading. Neighbourhood warden, street warden, ambassador and other terms are used to describe those involved in such schemes. I was pleased to hear the Minister tell my hon. Friend that there will be no compulsion on local authorities or others to incorporate such people into accredited community safety schemes. However, I hope that he will further explain what guidance will be issued to local authorities. 
 Many of those involved in neighbourhood warden type schemes have gained some experience but have very little training. According to the evidence that I have picked up, we are talking about a few days of training. There is no way, even adding the experience that some of them have gained, that they have enough to move straight into accredited community safety schemes, and to have police powers. There would need to be a lot more training involved. 
 I was interested to learn that new recruits to the Parks police in Kensington and Chelsea who have not come from the Metropolitan police have to undergo 10 weeks of training. I know that that is not a direct 
 analogy; a Parks policeman has more power than an ACSO will. Nevertheless, 10 weeks is a benchmark against which we can measure the amount of training that ACSOs have before they get interventionist powers, including those for the confiscation of tobacco and so on. 
 Those are important points, and I hope that the Minister will answer them. We have no philosophical objection to local authorities using private sector sub-contractors, as some already do for street policing. I have seen that done in Camden. Nor do we object to the police directly accrediting an external organisation and making it part of the police family. However, I am concerned about accountability, the level of management control, how ACSOs use police powers and whether the chief constable is aware of how they are using them. 
Mr. Paul Stinchcombe (Wellingborough) rose—
Norman Baker rose—

James Paice: I give way first to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe).

Paul Stinchcombe: I listened to the hon. Gentleman's argument with great interest. Most of his questions will be answered by the arrangements into which the chief officer enters.

James Paice: The hon. Gentleman is right; we certainly hope that that will be the case. However, we are here as legislators. Before we allow a Bill giving the chief constable such powers to be enacted, the least that we can do is challenge the Government about their precise intentions, not least because it is important to know what we are legislating for.

Paul Stinchcombe: Of course the hon. Gentleman is right, but as legislators we must also provide legislation that gives the chief constable sufficient powers to enter into appropriate arrangements. The hon. Gentleman rightly refers to the breadth of those powers.

James Paice: The hon. Gentleman's argument does not follow through, because a substantial part of the Bill relates to making decisions for chief constables. Part 1 of the Bill is all about telling chief constables how to run their force. The theme that the hon. Gentleman espouses does not run through the Bill.
 One of the issues involved is complaints. There is total inconsistency between the vague statement in subsection (6) and the complaints procedure that we discussed for police officers and community support officers—civilians employed by the police. There will be one arrangement for a civilian employed by the police who confiscates alcohol and a completely different complaints procedure for the accredited safety officer who does so. That is not right. Although the Minister refused to accept our amendments to add to the remit of the independent commission, he owes us a duty to explain more fully the complaints procedure that he envisages, including independent scrutiny.
 I apologise for having taken a long time to give way to the hon. Member for Lewes. I was responding to the previous intervention.

Norman Baker: I understand.
 Reliance on chief constables will weaken accountability further, as we shall not know what decisions chief constables are making when the Bill is passed. There may be wide variation in what chief constables do, and inevitably there will be good and bad practice. In the worst areas—by definition, there are bound to be worst areas—there will be unsatisfactory arrangements that have not been approved by Parliament.

James Paice: The hon. Gentleman is right. There will certainly be huge variation, which, certainly in the early years, will in itself be a strength, inasmuch as we shall be able to find out a little more about how things work and iron out the wrinkles. Like the Minister, I hope that best practice will spread quickly under the arrangements that will ultimately be in the legislation.
 I understand the view expressed by the Local Government Association, although I appreciate that the Minister may say, ''They would say that, wouldn't they?'' It is worried about the funding implications of introducing the accreditation scheme. The costs associated in training staff, monitoring performance and establishing vetting procedures cannot be met from existing budgets. 
 All those points relate to accountability, and some comments from the Minister about that would be helpful. Perhaps on this occasion he will rule out what he flatly refused to rule out, and effectively ruled in, when we discussed CSOs—the idea of a ring-fenced budget, to encourage the development of CSOs. I hope that he will assure us that there will not be a similar ring-fenced budget to encourage accredited community safety schemes. 
 Thank you for your indulgence in allowing me to stray beyond the amendments, Miss Widdecombe. All those issues are directly related to the clause and to the powers and development of accredited schemes, and I hope that the Minister will respond.

Ann Widdecombe: Before I call further Members, I should say that, having listened to the scope of the debate, I am now not minded to allow a debate on clause stand part. Members may want to take that into account in deciding whether to contribute to the debate on the amendments.

Annette Brooke: I endorse the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, which I shall not repeat. I agree with every word that he said.
 I shall examine another aspect that is relevant to the amendments. I have spoken to representatives of housing associations, which also require careful consideration. We worry about the private sector, but what about housing associations, especially when there has been large-scale stock transfer? I know that some housing associations feel that local authorities have left them on their own to deal with all the issues on the streets. In that sense, they want community safety wardens, and I appreciate that.
 I return to a point that I made earlier, although I suspect that it is more relevant now. All the local bodies should be pulled together. If housing associations are given a power that is not tied into the local authority, they are being given policing powers without other strengths to tackle behaviour on the estates. Clearly, there is currently isolation. We should use the Bill to try to tie things together. 
 I am cheating a little because I have a few quotes from a report that monitored antisocial behaviour orders. We could translate them across to this issue; I am not trying to be devious, but to underline my point. The report refers to registered social landlords and, in the context of ASBOs, says: 
 ''The 2000 guidance recommends that they are included in drawing up the local crime and disorder strategy''. 
However, it also says that registered social landlords are often left out of the equation, and that one solution proposed by more by one person was to compel partners—

John Denham: Does the hon. Lady accept that we shall deal with the part of the Bill that addresses registered social landlords and ASBOs during a later sitting? Registered social landlords might have been left out of the equation at the time of the review of ABSOs, but they are certainly not today.

Annette Brooke: I just need to clarify that I am referring to accredited safety officers. I suggest that the points made in the review translate over to that context if we are considering a holistic approach to policing on estates. I am aware that we shall pick up on those points and that they shall be relevant. I am being honest by saying that the quotes are out of context.
 A local authority representative said: 
 ''I think that something else needs to be put in place to facilitate a requirement on the crime and disorder partnerships...There needs to be something that actually directs the crime and disorder partnerships to include RSLs''. 
If a problem of working together exists in that context, it is even more important to tie in all relevant bodies when we consider the broader agenda of community safety officers. Will the Minister address that—if he has followed my argument across contexts? Undoubtedly, we need community safety wardens on our large estates that are managed by housing associations. My personal preference would be to accept the amendments that would tie in local authorities firmly and ensure that everybody works together.

George Osborne: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Miss Widdecombe, after working with you closely over recent years. May I take advantage of the licence that you kindly gave us to explore more broadly the accredited community safety schemes?
 I begin by joining the hon. Member for Lewes in noting the irony of the Labour party giving private companies policing powers. I can imagine the song and dance that you, Miss Widdecombe, would have heard 
 from Labour Members in Committee—perhaps including several in the Room today—had you proposed such a scheme when you were a Home Office Minister. There we go; the world has moved on. 
 The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), who is not present, teased the hon. Member for Lewes about elected police authorities. Of course, elected police authorities formed part of the Labour party's policy for almost two decades, but the world has moved on from that as well. 
 I share some of the worries raised by the hon. Member for Lewes and my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire. I would like the Minister to explain the types of employers to whom the clauses refer more specifically than as outlined in the Bill. If the provisions address social landlords, I am happy that they have the option of using such schemes. For example, the schemes in place at the Longridge and Coleshaw Farm housing estates in my constituency work extremely well. Social landlords should certainly have powers to apply for accreditation. How far does that go? Who does the Minister have in mind? Is he talking about store detectives in supermarkets and shopping centres? Does he mean private security firms that may patrol private or industrial property? It would be interesting to know whether nightclub bouncers fall within the definition? 
 I realise that I am straying slightly into clause 37, but will the Minister say whether the onus is on the chief constable to accredit someone unless he is not happy that that person is fit and proper in line with various parts of the clause? Alternatively, will the chief constable be given complete freedom to say that he does not want private security companies in his area to have accredited schemes? Could a private security firm take a chief constable to court and say, ''We have met all the criteria under the Bill, but you are not accrediting us''? Will the Minister clear up my worries? 
 The Bill is taking many good neighbourhood warden schemes—a Burkean myriad of little platoons—and, in effect, nationalising them by forcing them under the umbrella of local police accreditation schemes. I have mentioned the Stockport town warden scheme before, but it was a pioneering schemes. It is close to my constituency and two people involved in it have expressed worries about the provisions. Dave Curtis, the manager of the scheme, said: 
 ''The police have a different recruitment and training system. We are taking unemployed people and we receive applications from a different type of person to the police force.'' 
He said that he was worried about such people having police powers. 
 Stephen O'Hagan, the head of estate management at Stockport borough council, agreed with that and said: 
 ''In the limited consultation we've done, we've found that people are wary of the powers of enforcement. There's a feeling it might create a barrier between the community and the wardens.'' 
That is an important point. One reason why the warden schemes have worked well in my constituency and elsewhere is that local people do not see the wardens as police officers. As a result, the wardens have built up a different bond of trust with local 
 people. When most of the schemes are accredited, there is a danger that that bond of trust will be weakened because such officers will become part of the policing family and, in the process, will lose some of their informal relationship with the local community.

Boris Johnson: I share the pleasure of my hon. Friends at serving under your chairmanship, Miss Widdecombe. The hon. Member for Wellingborough said that the clause is widely drawn in allowing community safety schemes to be set up. Under the clause, any business can be given a community safety scheme. Let us suppose that a struggling magazine, albeit with a steeply rising circulation, came under attack from a powerful and determined Government in the form of a director of communications and strategy who was determined to assail the magazine. The editor of the magazine felt it necessary to recruit a community safety officer. He went to the chief officer and said, ''I have a man called Bruce Anderson. He is a fit and proper person. I undertake to give him the requisite training. He will command awe and respect from all who survey him.'' The chief officer would agree to that.
 To return to the point that was made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough, this part of the Bill is so widely framed that it will be susceptible to much confusion. That is the main problem.

Paul Stinchcombe: Is it not right that, in any application for accreditation, we will vest in the chief constable the discretion to decide whether to approve? Therefore, is it not right that we should presume that that discretion, vested in appropriately appointed chief officers, will be sensibly and reasonably exercised?

Boris Johnson: That is the point. I am sure that it would be sensibly and reasonably exercised, and I have no doubt that a chief officer would want to give this hypothetical magazine the protection that it deserved—and that, therefore, the scheme would be allowed to go ahead.
 However, there would be several points of ambiguity that would be left entirely up to the employer. What nomenclature will be given to this warden? Will he be called a community safety officer—which is not a very catchy name—or will he be called a Denham? That will be left entirely to the discretion of those who are responsible for the schemes. 
 What uniform will he wear? [Hon. Members: ''Denim.''] Denim has been suggested; that is brilliant, and it is a joke with which the Minister may well be familiar.

Ann Widdecombe: Order. I hesitate to interrupt this entertainment, but the hon. Gentleman is addressing issues that will more properly be dealt with when we discuss clause 38. Therefore, I ask him to bring his interesting speech back within the scope of the present topic.

Boris Johnson: Thank you, Miss Widdecombe. My intention is to point up the danger of confusion. The Minister has said that best practice will gradually roll
 out across the country, as one scheme learns from another. That is an interesting Darwinian view of how this might work. However, I fear that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton has cogently said, there will be confusion between different schemes, and that very good existing warden schemes will be replaced—and that they will be crowded out by a nationalised variety of warden.
 The most important thing is that CSOs—or whatever we are going to call them—should have respect, and that people should know what they are doing. Much as I approve of private involvement at all levels, I fear that the legislation is too widely drawn, and that it will lead to a dangerous incoherence in the public's image of CSOs.

Vera Baird: I welcome you, Miss Widdecombe, and I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship.
 The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) frequently gets carried away by his own rhetoric, which is amusing for us all. He seems to be suggesting that there is something mandatory about all these powers. The legislation merely empowers a chief constable to look at his own operational area, and to decide whether accrediting any schemes would be useful to him. If he shares the hon. Gentleman's reservations about some particular schemes, he simply will not accredit them. 
 As far as I can see, there is no prospect of a judicial review leading to anybody being compelled to accredit a scheme, because that is entirely within the chief constable's operational discretion. The chief constable is the person with the best view; I would have thought that the courts would readily accept that. 
 I wish to raise another concern by, once again, sheltering under the licence given by the Chair. It is inappropriate that these schemes should be limited to local authorities, for the many reasons that have been set out. However, although I do not advocate that limit, there would be an advantage to imposing it; local authorities are at least public authorities, within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998, whereas many other people who can be accredited with the powers to have officers will not, on the face of it, be public authorities within the meaning of that Act. It is inappropriate to say that the answer is to confine those people to local authorities. 
 It is hugely important that crime and disorder partnerships, neighbourhood renewal, housing associations and registered social landlords—even in my constituency, the single regeneration budget group—should be able to have enhanced power to take responsibility for their own communities. Surely, the issue is one of devolving the power to produce a scheme that fits into the local community at its most local level, and is best assessed by those concerned. 
 In my view, it is out of the question and of no use to the people who are suffering crime and disorder on the ground to limit the scheme to local authorities. However, the Human Rights Act protects individuals' human rights only against public authorities.

Paul Stinchcombe: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for giving way and I am extremely interested in her point. Is it not true that, once an organisation is accredited—even a private sector one—through exercise of the statutory powers to exercise certain public functions in law enforcement areas, it then falls within the remit of the Human Rights Act as a public authority?

Vera Baird: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's interest. He is also a lawyer and aware that the definition of a public authority includes any person who carries out functions of a public nature. I was going to come to that point later.
 Human rights are not enforceable against anyone who is not a public authority. It is clear that, above all other types of agencies of the state, people with police powers should be subject to the Human Rights Act. If there was any real point in introducing that measure—and there were many—that was one of the most important. The fact that the officers will not have detention powers takes the worst bite out of any risk that they are not covered by the Act. None the less, they will have powers to demand names and addresses and seize alcohol. Also, the schedule allows the Home Secretary to increase or alter their powers. In a sense, we are legislating in the dark as to how future Home Secretaries may decide to empower such officers. 
 It is hugely important that officers fall within the ambit of the Human Rights Act. Not surprisingly, the Joint Committee on Human Rights raised the issue in its 15th report. I am a member of that Committee, as is the hon. Member for Lewes. We wanted reassurance from the Government about whether, in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough suggested, private employees could be public authorities. It is hard in any ordinary sense to countenance somebody running a shopping centre as being a public authority. The shopping centre near me in Middlesbrough is owned and run by Legal and General, which does not readily fall into the category of public authority, so we sought reassurance. The Government's provisional answer was that, 
 ''The decision on which bodies are public authorities for the purpose of the 1998 Act is a matter for the courts.'' 
The trouble is that the state of current decisions is pretty chaotic—a clear finding at Court of Appeal level found that the Leonard Cheshire Foundation is not a public authority but that that the Poplar Housing Association is. 
 By extrapolating the notion that a Leonard Cheshire home could be a sheltered accommodation of a fair size, one might imagine that a warden scheme would be desirable. However, at present, such wardens would not be employed by a public authority, so would not be subject to the Human Rights Act, whereas a housing association would be. That is pretty chaotic. It is not satisfactory to legislate and then say, ''Even if the courts don't know what it means, we can leave it to them to decide in due course.'' The report states that
''in the Government's view, those private employees who enter into arrangements with the chief officer of police to accredit employees and accredited persons themselves'' 
—the employee and the accreditor— 
''would also be held to be 'public authorities' within the meaning of section 6(3)(b) of the 1998 Act''. 
I deduce from that response that it is the Government's intention that anyone subject to an accredited scheme should be a public authority according to that definition. The only way that that will happen is if the Government say so, preferably in the Bill. If they are not willing to say that all accredited schemes must be public authorities, will the Minister make it clear that any ambiguity in their status could be cleared up? That way, if a legal case were to follow on from the issue and the powers, the now well-known authority of Pepper v. Hart would allow the parties to bring up his remarks in support of the assertion that the schemes are public authorities. I urge him to help with that clarification.

John Denham: I am grateful for your tolerance in accepting wide-ranging debate, Miss Widdecombe. It has been helpful, as several important issues have been raised.
 It might be useful if I set out the slightly wider context to the debate. I shall draw on the example given by the hon. Member for Henley, who would like to ensure that his hypothetical magazine does not employ anyone with a dubious background, or anyone who might have been responsible in the past for telling tall tales and spreading malicious rumours or gossip about third parties—the sorts of things that a respectable magazine would wish to protect itself against. However, he should not be looking to the accreditation scheme to protect himself—

George Osborne: He's got Black Rod.

John Denham: An important part of the wider background to our discussion on the private sector is the establishment of the Security Industry Authority. From next April, it will progressively bring the private guarding industry into a system of national regulation and will apply some basic minimum standards to that occupation. We anticipate that any private sector company covered by accreditation will be registered with and regulated by the SIA. However, chief constables will wish to build upon the basic minimum standard that the SIA would bring into play. I mention that because issues were raised about accreditation and tasks such as checking employees' histories. Such things certainly need to be done, but might already be fulfilled by the registration requirements of the SIA. They might mean additional local responsibilities.
 The first big point of interest is whether accreditation schemes should extend to non-local authority schemes. As far as housing association and other schemes are concerned, it is worth recognising that 35 per cent. of the neighbourhood warden or street warden schemes that we have identified are not local authority schemes; they are run by other organisations, typically housing associations and registered social landlords. To exclude those schemes—and I suspect that they will exist in greater 
 numbers in future—from accreditation does not make sense, as they already involve some liaison and co-operation with the police. Bringing them into a formal accreditation scheme will strengthen rather than weaken their role. 
 Private sector schemes were mentioned. In places like Bluewater shopping centre or Trafford Park industrial estate, which was mentioned in the police reform White Paper, there is already a working relationship between police and the private sector in order to develop the best use of the extended police family. It is in the public interest that there should be a framework that formally acknowledges that co-operation locally and ensures that there are uniform minimum standards across the police force before someone takes part in an accreditation system. 
 Removing the private sector from accreditation schemes will not stop co-operation between the private guarding industry and the police; it will just remove the possibility of bringing that relationship within a consistent legal framework if the chief constable chooses to do so. I do not believe that it is to anyone's advantage to exclude the private sector. I shall deal with issues relating to accountability and complaints, but I do not believe that an issue of principle is involved that private-sector organisations or non-local authority organisations should be excluded from accreditation schemes. 
 Several issues have been raised that follow on from that. First, would an organisation or private security company apply to the chief constable for accreditation? The hon. Member for Lewes said that people would apply to the chief constable and no doubt be approved. It is not a system that provides a right to apply for accreditation. The chief constable has total discretion over that. 
 Secondly, there will be only one accreditation scheme for an area. The Bill does not set out a series of bilateral relationships between the chief constable and local organisations. To have coherence, the accreditation scheme will be a scheme for the area in which the organisations that the chief constable approves under the Bill can formally participate. That may help the Committee understand the Bill. 
 The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire asked who will control or deploy those covered by the accreditation scheme. Clearly, we would expect the exact working relationship between the police and members of the extended police family to be covered by the local accreditation scheme. However, the day-to-day responsibility for deploying neighbourhood wardens, for example, will lie with the local authority—the employer. Nevertheless, one might expect an accreditation scheme to set out the arrangements and availability of neighbourhood wardens, for example, to have briefing meetings with the police. Hon. Members who have spoken to local neighbourhood wardens will know that it is usually part of the system to have, on a weekly or fortnightly basis, an hour or so briefing meeting involving police and neighbourhood wardens. Such matters might be covered by an accreditation scheme.

Paul Stinchcombe: Will my right hon. Friend clarify a matter that is troubling me? It relates to the legal nature of the arrangements that he envisages will be entered into under subsection (5). Who will, ordinarily, be the parties to those arrangements? If they were breached, would any legal sanction be available?

John Denham: The arrangement would be between the police and the employers. The Bill provides for the chief constable to remove accreditation at any point if he is not satisfied that standards are being met. I shall take the opportunity to find out whether any further advice arrives, but the emphasis in drafting the Bill was that the chief officer would be able to end the scheme at any point at which he felt that the standards were not being met, and, similarly, would have the discretion to remove from accreditation schemes people who do not meet the standard.

Paul Stinchcombe: As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) said, it would be impossible under judicial review to compel an exercise of discretion, but it may be possible to quash an exercise of discretion. If the chief constable ceased the arrangements, might the matter come before the courts?

John Denham: As always, in the case of every matter that we discuss in every Bill these days, with the growth of administrative law, public servants such as chief constables have a general duty to act reasonably. We believe that a chief constable's responsibilities in the Bill in relation to satisfying himself about complaints about training and other matters should be sufficient for him not to be—I suspect that this is my hon. Friend's fear—backed into a corner where he is deeply unhappy with how a scheme is operating but feels unable to do anything about it.
 In drafting the Bill, we tried to make the chief constable's responsibilities clear and ensure that each of the points on which he needed to be satisfied were points on which he could say, ''I am no longer satisfied'', so that that scheme, employee or employer would no longer be part of the operation. Although I understand my hon. Friend's concerns, I hope that we have structured the provision—

Ann Widdecombe: Order. I know that it is difficult from the Front Bench, but if the Minister turns his back entirely to the Chair, that confuses not only the Chair but the Hansard reporters.

John Denham: I apologise, Miss Widdecombe. I hope that we have avoided the situation about which my hon. Friend was concerned.

James Paice: I want to pick up the Minister on his point about there being only one scheme. Most of us had recognised that there would be only one scheme in a whole force area, so in London, there would be only one scheme for the whole Met.
 I challenge the Minister on his point that there will be no bilateral arrangements. Clause 37 makes it clear that a chief police officer will make direct arrangements with employers and with every individual accredited community safety officer. Each ACSO will be approved. Therefore, there will be many bilateral arrangements among separate employers under the scheme's umbrella. That point also relates to powers. I am not sure whether each officer within the scheme automatically has the same powers or whether, as clause 37 suggests, separate arrangements will exist to determine which powers are allocated to each officer.

John Denham: The hon. Gentleman has picked me up on a perfectly fair point. Although I was right to say that there will not be separate individual accreditation schemes between different employers and the police, the Bill clearly provides for arrangements with employers in the way that he described. Indeed, that is important when considering the private sector and, perhaps, warden and guard schemes that relate to registered social landlords. The Bill will enable accredited individuals' powers to be restricted to not only their working duties, but their place of work. For example, an accredited person employed as a guard in a major shopping centre might be able to exercise his powers only when at work and in the centre. All accredited individuals under a London scheme, for example, would not be able to exercise their powers everywhere in London. That is important because it would make no sense if the Bill allowed a security company's employees who guarded a specific shopping centre to have a range of police powers in circumstances in which they were not accountable to their employer or not at work. The hon. Gentleman was right, which allowed me to clarify my earlier statement about bilateral powers.
 I turn to the complaints procedure, which is covered by subsection (6). As schemes develop and guidance is issued, the model for the complaints procedure might vary within a scheme from employer to employer. For example, if a local authority had a well-established complaints system that covered their employees, the chief officer might choose to build on that system for people employed by a local authority. The chief officer would need to be satisfied that adequate complaints procedures were available to people working for a registered social landlord or a private sector employer. 
 I think that the subsection is a part of the Bill about which the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said that it is reasonable for law makers to ask whether we have sufficient detail at this stage. The Bill contains sufficient responsibilities because it is clear that the chief officer has responsibility for ensuring that there is an adequate complaints procedure. The Bill provides sufficient levers to ensure good practice, notably through a later clause that will allow us to issue codes of practice. We should be able to ensure that a good complaints procedure is in place for each case. It would be a mistake, however, to expect that a single national 
 complaints procedure should be prescribed from the centre to cover the entire range of organisations that could come within a local accreditation scheme. 
 Training is covered by clause 37(4)(d). Again, it will need to be appropriate to the powers that are being exercised. We expect Centrex—the central police training and development authority—to establish training packages. It will build on the work that has been undertaken successfully over the past year and examine the responsibilities of police officers and others, and the type of training that is necessary to deliver those competencies and responsibilities. We shall set down in the training packages for accredited staff—as for CSOs—what skills they are expected to exercise and show how they have been trained to carry out such skills in line with training procedures. It is much more important to concentrate on the content of training in that logical way rather than on whether it was undertaken for three, five or seven weeks. It is critical to identify the powers and responsibilities that will be exercised to make sure that the training is appropriate. As experience develops, we shall be able to use the powers under later clauses to impose a binding code of practice.

Patrick Mercer: How will the success or otherwise of the training be assessed? If it is found to be unsuccessful and the ACSOs fail their exams, will they be made to take them again?

John Denham: At present, there is constant feedback between the police service and training bodies about the quality of training. When deficiencies are identified, they are addressed within that process. I expect it to be similar under the Bill. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire asked about the exercise of police powers. The Bill does not require each exercise of police powers to be reported to the chief constable any more than each parking ticket given by a local authority traffic warden is reported to the chief constable, even though such activity was carried out by a police employee a few years ago. As part of their self-assurance about the operation of the schemes, we expect chief constables to have in place adequate monitoring to show how the accredited community safety officers were working, the effectiveness or otherwise of their powers and the overall impact on levels of crime, antisocial behaviour and public reassurance. I do not believe that it would be sensible or necessary for the Government to prescribe those mechanisms in the setting up of the schemes.

Patrick Mercer: The reason why I asked that question is that a detention officer in Newark said that, while his job was useful, worthwhile and relieved a regular police officer, his training lacked in depth and quality. He acknowledged that he was part of a new scheme and that, as it developed, it would improve. I wanted to bring that officer's remarks to the attention of the Minister.

John Denham: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is still the case today that several police officers in specialist roles have not received the level of
 specialist training that we would have liked them to receive. The police skills standards organisation is developing a competence-based framework for appraising and assessing the development of police officers. That framework gives us confidence that the new police powers can be identified and that appropriate training is being given. Over the past few years, a much more systematic approach has been developed to tackle the sort of problems identified by the hon. Gentleman.
 I hope that I have covered many of the issues that have been raised, and I now turn to the point about compliance with the European convention on human rights, which was made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar—although she has also anticipated much of the response that I am about to give to that, as I would expect from a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. 
 With regard to potential liability under the Human Rights Act 1998, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights acknowledged, many of the potential employers of accredited persons—such as local authorities—will be obvious public authorities within the meaning of section 6 of the Act. It is for the courts to decide which bodies and persons are public authorities for the purposes of the 1998 Act. However, in the Government's view, those private employers who enter into arrangements with the chief officer of police to accredit employees and accredited persons themselves would also be held to be public authorities within the meaning of section 6(3)(b) of the 1998 Act, which refers to 
''any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature''. 
They will be held to be public authorities when they exercise powers and duties that are conferred on them under the provisions of the Bill. 
 The Government would be reluctant to make express provision that employers under community safety accreditation schemes are to be regarded as public authorities within the meaning of section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act. That is because the approach taken by the Human Rights Act to the definition of public authorities was a matter of deliberate policy; and although it may be true that some aspects of the case law on this topic remain to be clarified, it is likely that employers of community safety accreditation schemes would be regarded as public authorities when performing functions in connection with those schemes. 
 I do not wish to rehearse further the debates that were held during the passage of the Act, and subsequently, on the pros and cons of listing public authorities in the legislation. I would prefer to rest the Government's case, but I hope that I have given at least some of the clarification that my hon. Friend was seeking.

Vera Baird: Does the Government intend that these people should be public authorities, regardless of any speculation about what the decision of the court might ultimately be? Is it the Government's intention that they should be public authorities?

John Denham: Today, my intention is not to go any further than what I have said, and to repeat the position that we gave to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. However, I hope that I have been helpful by giving the clearest view that I can on what we think these employers' position will be in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998.

Paul Stinchcombe: Are the Government seeking to continue to legislate in the current terms because it is their view that these employers will be subject to that Act?

John Denham: We are continuing to legislate in a manner that leaves us confident that we are not extending police powers in a way that lays us vulnerable to the charge of ignoring or stepping around human rights legislation. However, for reasons that have been rehearsed elsewhere, the Government have chosen not to attempt the task of naming every single organisation that could be a public authority in relation to specific bits of the legislation.
 If I have overlooked any of the issues that have been raised, I hope to be able to respond to them in a moment.

Norman Baker: The last few minutes of the Minister's speech were very interesting, and I will turn to the matters that he addressed shortly.
 The Minister has not really discussed the philosophical issue as to whether it is right for private sector bodies whose interests are, necessarily, their own, to be exercising police powers in the public interest. He has also failed to address the point that members of the public who might accept being given a ticket for littering by a police officer—or even by a CSO—might not accept being given one by an employee of an organisation such as Tesco. I think that he is in danger of undermining respect for the law through the exercise of the powers that he wishes to hand over to private sector employees. He also failed to pick up on the point that there may be a conflict of interest between the private company and what the public wish to see in, for example, the complaints procedure. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire touched on that. 
 The Bill establishes the Independent Police Complaints Commission. That has been widely welcomed by everyone in the country as going some way towards dealing with a problem that everyone recognises: the fact that the police are judge and jury in their own courts. It was for that reason that the Government brought forward the proposals, but having introduced the concept into the Bill, they are now undermining it by excluding a range of officers from the provision. In some ways, excluding private sector employees is worse than excluding public sector employees. 
 What will be the reaction of a private sector company if it receives a complaint about one of its employees and their activities? Will it say, ''Yes, that employee was wrong; we have a major failure in our company. We are happy to take the knocks in the local 
 paper, and see our reputation diminished. It is absolutely right; there was a problem here''? Or will the reaction be ''We got that wrong. Let's try to cover it up''? I suggest that in many cases, the latter will be the reaction. The Minister is simply wrong not to include those people under the umbrella of the IPCC. 
 The Minister is also wrong not to recognise the potential conflict of interest in smaller matters. Let us suppose that a shopping centre had a street cafe that was licensed to sell alcohol. That street cafe might be happy to pay more rent if there was to be no other alcohol consumed in that area. It would be in the interests of the persons running the shopping centre, who might be agents of the accreditation scheme, to be hard on anyone consuming alcohol in that area. That may not be necessary for public safety reasons or to prevent public disorder, but may simply be convenient in order to please someone paying rent to that company. All sorts of conflicts could arise, and the Minister has not dealt with them. 
 The Minister mentioned existing schemes, and seemed to use them as justification for saying that everything will be all right on the night with them, but the hon. Member for Tatton correctly said that those involved in existing schemes do not have police powers. Such schemes operate voluntarily with the consent of the public precisely because they do not have police powers. The Minister is proposing a marked difference in the way that those schemes operate, but assumes that there will be no difference in the public response to that. 
 The Minister also talked about the necessity for co-operation with the private sector, as if any hon. Member suggested that that should not occur. Of course it should; it does and it must. However, that is different to giving private employees police powers, and that is the issue that I hope I addressed when I spoke to the amendment. The Minister has given some colour to the idea of what an accreditation scheme might be, but it is still not clear to me—I do not know about other hon. Members—exactly how it will operate. 
 There is to be one scheme per area, but it is not clear how big an area is. Will it be a police authority area, or a town centre, or something else? Nor is it clear how many employers from private sector organisations could be involved in a scheme. He has not effectively addressed the issue of the conditions for ending the scheme. The hon. Member for Wellingborough intervened on the Minister on the subject of the difficulties that a chief constable could face if an organisation running a scheme did not want to be removed. It might say that it had lost respectability, or that its share price tumbled at a particular instant. It may think it necessary to protect its public reputation by taking action; that seems to me to be quite a likely scenario. We do not know what the exit strategy is. It is not clear from clause 36 or 37. We are going into the scheme in the dark.
 We are also going into the dark and hoping for the best with our fingers crossed in regard to the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for Redcar about the relationship of accredited schemes to the Human Rights Act. We will have a topsy-turvy upside down world in which private employees will be classed as public authorities, according to the Minister, although that is not definite. We are assuming that the court may take the view that the Minister's interpretation is right. However, that may fall apart and we may find that they are not public authorities at all. Although I am not a lawyer, deciding that private organisations and employees are actually public authorities takes some stretching of the imagination.

John Denham: Is the hon. Gentleman telling the Committee that there are no circumstances in which private employees would be regarded as public authorities? Does he think that it sets a precedent?

Norman Baker: It is precedent setting in the sense that some real issues have been raised by the hon. and learned Member for Redcar about the relationship between the powers proposed under the Human Rights Act. A whole new body of people will have police powers for the first time, so there is no precedent. We are moving into unknown territory, and the Minister is taking unnecessary risks.

Vera Baird: As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a specific provision in the Bill that allows for a private body to be dealt with as if it were a public authority. It is not as if one must impossibly transpose Lloyd's bank or whoever owns the shopping centre in my constituency into a public authority. If such organisations carry out public duties they will be deemed to be public authorities, and it was the vagueness surrounding that point that required clarification.
 I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has put his finger on the point: if the Government introducing the legislation express their expectation that the courts will find that what have been created are public authorities, it means that they intend them to be that, and they will have difficulty escaping that later on. Frankly, I do not think that they will want to escape it. It would be surprising if the Government who introduced the Human Rights Act wanted to exclude vast chunks of people from its remit.

Norman Baker: I very much hope that that is the case. I regularly give credit to the Government for introducing the Act, which is a major step forward for civil liberties. However, the hon. and learned Lady asked whether all the accredited schemes would involve public authorities, and the Minister replied that he did not wish to go further than the comments supplied to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. He said, ''It is likely.'' We have heard the intentions—the Minister nodded during the intervention, which I put on record, but we have little more than that.

George Osborne: Perhaps he was nodding off.

Norman Baker: Perhaps.
 The Home Secretary may subsequently alter the powers. The Minister relied on the Security Industry Authority, and I respect its work. Is he saying that no organisation will be allowed to be part of an accredited scheme unless it is a member of the Security Industry Authority? It would be helpful if he did say that, but I am not sure that he did. The organisation is an umbrella body in a sense, paid for by companies that are subject to its oversight. Therefore, it is not entirely independent and could be compared with the Press Complaints Commission, which is not without criticism for the way in which it operates.

John Denham: On the point about the SIA, in the information that I gave the Committee, I said that it existed and that I believed that chief constables would be likely to build upon it. It is right that there is no requirement in the Bill for the scheme to depend on the SIA. However, given the existence of a regulatory body, there is a reasonable expectation that chief constables would think twice before putting into accreditation a scheme that was eligible to register and had been rejected by the SIA.

Norman Baker: Again, we have been told by the Minister that it would be likely that schemes would be subject to the SIA and that it is unlikely that a chief constable would go ahead without SIA approval or membership of a body of the SIA's code of practice, or whatever. We do not know that it will definitely happen. If the Minister believes that membership of the SIA is the appropriate way of dealing with the various bodies, why does he not make it a requirement? He seems to be leaving open the option that a chief constable may decide that the SIA is a jolly good body, but someone who wants to exercise powers does not have to be subject to its requirements. I do not understand why he leaves the loophole open.
 I have told the Committee about some grave reservations that my colleagues and I have about the powers being handed over to the private sector in the way proposed by the Bill. I accept the well-made point of the hon. and learned Member for Redcar that the term ''local authority'' could be slightly narrow and it might be more appropriate to use ''public authority''. Nevertheless, the objections that my colleagues and I have to the proposals are so deep that I intend to press the amendment to a Division.

John Denham: That ragbag of assaults on the Bill should not go unchallenged. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Lewes talks about devolution of the police forces when it suits him. However, although it is clearly reasonable to rest on the judgment and explicit legal responsibilities of chief constables set out in the Bill, he portrays a world in which chief constables are never to be trusted and cannot be expected to comply with their legal duties or carry through their responsibilities. That is ridiculous.
 The hon. Gentleman conjured up a situation in which a private security company was bribed by a shop to enforce the law in a certain manner. Under the Bill, the chief constable will be able to terminate such an 
 arrangement immediately. It is clearly an offence to act outside the responsibilities in the Bill, and the hon. Gentleman's claims have no credence. 
 It would be wrong to prescribe every element of the procedure. The Bill sets out that the chief constable will be responsible for the complaints procedure. That lays a requirement on the chief constable to assure him or herself that the complaints procedure is established and maintained. Therefore, the chief constable must monitor how the procedure is working to comply with the responsibilities in the Bill. The hon. Gentleman's idea that that part of the Bill does not exist and that a letter from a company saying, ''We've got a complaints procedure. Leave it all to us and don't worry about how we do things,'' would satisfy the Bill's requirements is wrong. On this occasion, the hon. Gentleman has done himself no credit by conjuring up a series of situations that do not have credibility.

James Paice: As the hon. Member for Lewes appears intent on dividing the Committee, I want confirmation that the amendments on which we shall vote would mean that a significant number of existing warden schemes would be ineligible for accreditation. Will the Minister put on record whether that is the case because if it is, I am afraid that we shall not be able to support the hon. Member for Lewes?

John Denham: Our best estimate—there is no central register of schemes—is that the amendments would put 35 per cent. of existing schemes outside accreditation.
 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 2, Noes 18.

Question accordingly negatived. 
 Clause 36, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 37 - Accreditation under community safety accreditation schemes

Norman Baker: I beg to move amendment No. 147, in page 36, line 38, at end insert—
'(aa) that there has not been a bankruptcy order made against the person's employer, or the employer's estate has not been sequestrated, or the employer has not made a composition or arrangement with, or granted a trust deed for, its creditors;'.
 This is a less controversial amendment. In fact, I see no reason why the Minister would not feel comfortable with it and be willing to support it, and I await his comments with interest. It concerns who should be eligible to be party to accreditation under the community safety accreditation schemes. I am worried that some definitions under the clause are a little vague. ''A fit and proper person'' may be used in other legislation, but it would benefit from amplification by the Minister. For example, it is not clear whether someone with a criminal record or spent conviction would be deemed a fit and proper person. I should like to know the exact meaning of the phrase when applied under the clause. 
 I am sure that the Minister agrees that it would be inappropriate for a person or organisation to be given powers if there had been 
''a bankruptcy order made against the person's employer, or the employer's estate has not been sequestrated, or the employer had not made a composition or arrangement with, or granted a trust deed for, its creditors''. 
I seek to impose a low threshold. The hon. Gentleman may recognise the words. I remind the Committee that they are taken directly from paragraph 11(1)(b) of schedule 2 on page 50 of the Police Act 1996. It relates to members of the police authority, but it applies the same principle. The concept is straightforward. The amendment is uncontroversial. Its wording has been used by Home Office draftsmen or draftswomen in the past. I look forward to the Minister giving it a fair wind.

Nick Hawkins: I am delighted that the hon. Member for Lewes has taken the wording of his amendment from the excellent Conservative Administration's Police Act 1996. Although my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and I have not added our names in support of the amendment, we agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would do no harm to adopt the same safeguard that was adopted in another context under the 1996 Act. Even if the Minister does not accept the amendment, I hope that he may reflect on it with those who advise him and, who knows, a similar amendment may be tabled by the Government on Report. It would be a sensible addition to the Bill. It would be an extra safeguard and we shall listen with interest to the Minister's response.

John Denham: It is interesting to hear reference made to the Conservative Government when considering the amendment. Let us cast our minds back to the disastrous Conservative recession in the early 1990s when millions of people lost their homes. I recall that
 a million or so small business went bankrupt. If someone had the misfortune to be bankrupted by the Tory Government in the early 1990s and has, over 10 years, built up a business in the guarding industry, for example, would we want that person to be excluded from participating in such activities because of one event in his life over which he had no control? We do not apply such a test to a wide range of organisations that provide sensitive services to the police service, such as fraud handling.
 The point of principle has been referred to, and the test of a ''fit and proper person'' may include his financial history as well as criminal records, checks and so on. However, the amendment could draw into the pool a lot of people whom we would not sensibly want to exclude. I am not saying that such issues should not be looked into carefully, but the broader test of ''fit and proper'' is the responsibility of the chief officer who is running the accreditation scheme and one that should be applied. 
 I give the assurance that we expect companies that propose such schemes to carry out checks involving character references and criminal records, and that there should be checks of the organisation's financial standing, integrity and legitimacy. I hope that the hon. Member for Lewes will feel that we are meeting the spirit of his suggestion. The narrowness of the amendment might unfairly exclude some people, albeit possibly a small number.

Norman Baker: I shall not delay the Committee unduly. I understand the Minister's point about a time scale. I would have been happier if he had said that the amendment is well founded and needed a provision relating to a time scale inserted into it in order to limit the effect to a recent bankruptcy, for example.
 I still believe that the point about having the concept explained is valid, especially as we are discussing the exercise of police powers. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that and find out whether an amended version that includes a time scale would be appropriate. However, in light of the Minister's comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Clause 37 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 5 - Powers exercisable by accredited persons

John Denham: I beg to move amendment No. 215, in page 136, line 16, at end insert—
 'Power to require giving of name and address
 1A (1) Where an accredited person whose accreditation specifies that this paragraph applies to him has reason to believe that another person has committed a relevant offence in the relevant police area, he may require that other person to give him his name and address
 (2) A person who fails to comply with a requirement under sub-paragraph (1) is guilty of an offence and shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
 (3) In this paragraph ''relevant offence'', in relation to any accredited person, means any offence which is—
(a) a relevant fixed penalty offence for the purposes of any powers exercisable by the accredited person by virtue of paragraph 1; or
(b) an offence the commission of which appears to the accredited person to have caused—
(i) injury, alarm or distress to any other person; or
(ii) the loss of, or any damage to, any other person's property;
but the accreditation of an accredited person may provide that an offence is not to be treated as a relevant offence by virtue of paragraph (b) unless it satisfies such other conditions as may be specified in the accreditation.'.

Ann Widdecombe: With this it will be convenient to take the following: Amendment No. 28, in page 136, line 18, leave out paragraph 2.
 Government amendment No. 216.

John Denham: This group of amendments relates to powers that are both appropriate for accredited persons and necessary to maximise their effectiveness. They deal with the power to require a name and address.
 Government amendment No. 215 introduces a power to require a name and address for some offences, but it does not, as was mentioned earlier, reintroduce the power of detention that was deleted in another place. Opposition amendment No. 28 would delete the power to require the name and address of someone acting in an antisocial manner. 
 I shall explain the value of having the power to require a name and address, which we now propose without the power of detention. Denying accredited persons the power to require a name and address will hinder their effectiveness. Most obviously, the ability to require a name and address will enable the fixed penalty notice to be enforced. The ability to ask for a name and address in such circumstances may be enough to enable them to handle a low-level instance of disorder. In circumstances in which the power is ignored, as the hon. Member for Lewes said, there is no back-up legal power of detention. None the less, the power can help provide evidence for a future action, including an antisocial behaviour order, through the refusal to comply with the request to give a name and address. 
 The Bill contains significant safeguards to ensure that all the powers conferred on accredited persons are exercised appropriately. It is because we believe that the name and address provision is a key part of enforcement for accredited officers that we reintroduced it. 
 We listened to and took account of the mood in another place and discussions in Committee on powers of detention, and we have not introduced them. Without the back-up of the power of detention, in some circumstances the name and address will be refused. As I said, evidence of such refusal may help wardens and others to introduce further measures against offenders, including the use of antisocial behaviour orders. Amendment No. 216 is a consequential Government amendment.

George Osborne: Will the Minister explain why, given the Government's decision not to give powers of detention to accredited safety schemes, he believes that CSOs should have a power to detain, as we debated, but that these people should not? What is the Government's logic?

John Denham: In the Government's view, CSOs should have the power to detain with reasonable force. We believe that that power should be exercised only by someone who is directly employed by the police service—hence the full package for CSOs. For accredited community safety officers who are employed not by the police service but by local authorities or others, which we discussed earlier, a more limited range of powers was always appropriate, as they are not directly employed by the police service. That matter was discussed in another place. We have taken a realistic view of the situation, and we have secured by far the largest part of what we wanted, because there will be a legal right to require a name and address, and possible consequences if someone refuses to do supply that information. That is why we have introduced the amendments in this way.

Norman Baker: It would be churlish not to welcome the Government's change of policy; they have deleted their proposal to give accredited officers the power of detention. Their previous position was wrong, and I give them credit for changing it.
 However, there is an inconsistency in the present situation. We are giving the power to require someone to supply their name and address, but we are not giving any means to achieve that. Therefore, it is a power which cannot be enforced, which might lead to the system—and the officers concerned—being brought into disrepute. If someone were to say ''No'' to an officer and then walk away, that person could not be compelled to do anything. That would be an invidious position to put an accredited officers into.

John Denham: I wish to ensure that there is no confusion. As I said earlier, there are two possible consequences. If someone who refuses to give their name and address is subsequently identified, they could be prosecuted for committing an offence under clause 45(2). Also, if someone is subsequently identified—which will frequently be the case—it will be possible for their refusal to give their name and address to be a part of the portfolio of evidence that is presented in seeking an antisocial behaviour order. Therefore, the idea that nothing can happen as a consequence is wrong.

Norman Baker: I take on board the Minister's qualification of my point. However, there is no immediate consequence, and evidence will be required from a third person that the person who was required to give their name and address was present at the time and refused to supply that information. Otherwise, that person could simply deny that they were present when the incident occurred, and there would be no way around that—it would be a matter of one person's word against another's.

Huw Irranca-Davies: The use of CCTV cameras, which are extensively employed in Bridgend, might lead to such third-party evidence being provided.

Norman Baker: That is true. However, CCTV is not omnipresent—for which we should, perhaps, be thankful—and I do not think that the Government intend to make it so. Therefore, it will not cover all areas, but it might make an impact in certain circumstances, as the hon. Gentleman said.
 I do not wish to detain the Committee unduly, but I should refer the Minister to the comments of his hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), whom I am glad has been restored to ministerial office as the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. He made the point that to give powers without means of enforcement would neither work, nor be very sensible. He made an eloquent speech about that, and he convinced me of his argument. Therefore, notwithstanding the Minister's qualifications, it is inappropriate for accredited officers to be put in the position of requiring something that they cannot ensure will be delivered. 
 I also have objections about someone from a private company being able to require a name and address. Those are the reasons why I oppose the Government's amendment, and support my amendment, which is also supported by Conservative Committee members.

Nick Hawkins: That amendment has been tabled in the names of the hon. Members for Lewes and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, and I.
 As the hon. Member for Lewes has pointed out, the amendment reflects that there is a straightforward conflict between the two sides of the Committee. While I like the hon. Gentleman, I am pleased that the Government have moved some way in our direction by not seeking to reimpose the power to detain for accredited persons. That was a worry to many police officers and the Police Federation. We give credit to the Minister for taking account of the strong views that were expressed in another place when the Bill was debated there. The Government have not gone far enough, however, so we oppose Government amendment No. 215, which wants to put back in part what their Lordships wisely removed. Moreover, paragraph 2 of the schedule should be removed. 
 The hon. Member for Lewes rightly expressed some worries. I debated the Private Security Industry Bill in the previous Parliament. You will have particular memories of the work undertaken by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and I on that Bill, Miss Widdecombe, because we were part of your team at the time. I am much inclined to accept the worries that have been expressed by not only the hon. Member for Lewes today, but many of their Lordships and many Labour Members in those debates on the Private Security Industry Bill about giving extra powers to those who might turn out to be from the less reputable side of the private security industry.
 It is a shame that the Government's business managers did not think it fit to make the right hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), the acknowledged parliamentary expert after a lifetime in politics on the private security industry, a member of this Committee. Had he been here, he may have had considerable reservations about the Government's actions.

James Paice: That is exactly why.

Nick Hawkins: As my hon. Friend said, that is why the right hon. Member for Walsall, South is not a member of the Committee. When the Bill is discussed on Report, it will be interesting to see whether that senior and distinguished right hon. Gentleman, the Chairman of the Defence Committee, has an opportunity to speak on such issues. If he does, I suspect that he may not agree with what the Minister is putting forward.
 If the Government have their way and we end up with accredited persons having the right to require people to give their name and address, I foresee more confrontations on the street. I have defended and prosecuted at the Bar for several years. I was involved in many cases in both the Crown court and the magistrates court that arose from confrontations between private sector security guards in shopping centres with their limited powers to summon police officers and gangs of hooligans and shoplifters. Something that had started off as a legitimate attempt by a security guard to arrest teenage shoplifters could degenerate quickly into a serious affray, criminal damage and serious violence. Entirely innocent and law-abiding people could become drawn into such mob activities and be victims of violence and confrontation. 
 However careful the protection and safeguards, human nature being what it is, if mistakes are made, some people may be accredited who are not the best people to exert powers. If they insisted that they had the power to demand a person's name and address, that could be a recipe for serious confrontation. That is only one of the worries that organisations such as the Police Federation have expressed. I do not want to detain the Committee but, at this stage, I cannot think of any way of bridging the difference of principle between the two sides of the Committee. The Government are trying to take account of only part of what was said in another place. They are trying to reintroduce into the Bill something that the other place was wise to take out in its entirety. We think that the Government have still got the matter wrong, although we are pleased that they have listened to some extent.

John Denham: We obviously have an indication of how the hon. Gentleman wishes the Opposition to vote on the amendment. I hope that they seriously reconsider the matter in the remaining stages of the Bill's passage. Having the power to ask for a name and address will be a significant advantage to street and neighbourhood wardens and others who are part of an accredited scheme in carrying out the general public order and nuisance duties that we want them to carry out.
 The hon. Gentleman majored on the issue of the danger that the wrong people would have the use of the powers. It is essential to recognise that, through the responsibilities of the chief constable, there are powerful safeguards precisely to ensure that that does not happen. Equally, there are strong safeguards for dealing with an abuse of powers, just as there are for police officers. The issue should not become locked in by party political voting, as it is critical to the full exercise of those powers locally. 
 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 14, Noes 6.

Question accordingly agreed to. 
 Amendment made: No. 216, in page 136, line 24, leave out sub-paragraph (2).—[Mr. Denham.]

Norman Baker: I beg to move amendment No. 31, in page 137, line 23, at end insert—
 'Carrying out of road checks
 6A (1) An accredited person whose accreditation specifies that this paragraph applies to him shall have the following powers in the relevant police area—
(a) the power to carry out any road check the carrying out of which by a police officer is authorised under section 4 of the 1984 Act (road checks); and
(b) for the purpose of exercising that power, the power conferred by section 163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) (power of police to stop vehicles) on a constable in uniform to stop a vehicle.
 (2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

Ann Widdecombe: With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 32, in page 137, line 23, at end insert—
 'Seizure of vehicles used to cause alarm etc.
 6B (1) An accredited person whose accreditation specifies that this paragraph applies to him—
(a) shall, within the relevant police area, have all the powers of a constable in uniform under section 53 of this Act which are set out in subsection (3) of that section; and
(b) references in that section to a constable, in relation to the exercise of any of those powers by that person, are references to that person.
 (2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.
 No. 33, in page 137, line 23, at end insert— 
 'Cordoned areas 
 6C (1) An accredited person whose accreditation specifies that this paragraph applies to him shall, in relation to any cordoned area in the relevant police area, have all the powers of a constable in uniform under section 36 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (c. 11) (enforcement of cordoned area) to give orders, make arrangements or impose prohibitions or restrictions. 
 (2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

Norman Baker: Let us see whether the Minister will be more amenable to the amendments under discussion than he has been to some others this morning. He should be, as they increase the powers of accredited persons. He will notice that they have the support not only of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole but of Conservative Members.
 I should have preferred to discuss the proposal having established that the officers were subject to a public or local authority, but that is not the case. Nevertheless, I am happy to move the amendment. It is right that, in cases of urgency, the police should use officers who, by the Minister's own account, will have been properly trained and will know the ins and outs of their areas of responsibility. We are talking about emergency powers: the carrying out of road checks, seizure of vehicles used to cause alarm, and cordoned areas. 
 If there is an incident in one of our towns—heaven forbid—surely we would want to call on all those who have responsibility to help in such limited circumstances. It would be odd if a range of people who were properly trained and accredited by the chief constable had to stand by while an emergency occurred. I would have thought that there was role for that group of people to help out. 
 The balance that I have tried to strike in the amendment is that the group should exercise their powers under the supervision of a constable, which is different from a CSO acting alone and using the powers that the Minister has persuaded his colleagues to give. That strikes the right balance between accountability and the ability to carry out effective tasks during an emergency. It would not mean that there would be one constable for each ACSO, but that a constable would be there or thereabouts in a specific area, such as a cordoned area, giving instructions with knowledge of what people were doing. That would provide an extra body of people to help in an emergency, while retaining the link of accountability that is necessary for individuals who would be employed by the private sector or a public authority. 
 I hope that the Minister will accept the amendments for the reasons that I have given. After all, we want to ensure that people who work for Tesco occasionally work in the public interest as well as the interest of that company.

James Paice: As the hon. Gentleman said, we have attached our names to the amendments. We want a small extension of the powers of accredited community safety schemes, although the Minister
 probably thinks that that sits oddly with all our other remarks on the issue. I assure him that that is not the case because we have tried to look realistically at the role that ACSOs can play in the community. As the hon. Member for Lewes said, we are discussing what would be an urgent situation.
 The three situations to which the amendments refer could arise suddenly, but they would almost invariably require several personnel. That is the key point. Our worry about the powers is whether ACSOs will have the necessary training and discretion to use police powers by themselves. It is difficult to conceive of police powers being used by anyone other than a group of officers when dealing with the three situations to which the amendments relate. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable that a constable, who would ensure that the powers were properly used, could muster the support of others to carry out road checks, cordons or even seize a vehicle. The extension is limited but it is a sensible way to maximise the use of resources because rather than having to pull a load of regular officers off the streets to set up a road check, only one would be required, and he could be backed up with several ACSOs. That is sensible. The amendments would not provide that that must happen, but they would give the chief constable flexibility, which the Minister has constantly asked for throughout our debates.

John Denham: I profess to being slightly confused because Opposition spokesmen in another place tried to remove those powers from CSOs who work for the police. The Opposition have said that police employees should not enjoy the powers, but they want to give them to ACSOs.
 Let us examine the amendments on their merits. There is an issue about how far we extend the powers in the Bill to non-police employees. We have sought to limit the power of ACSOs to matters that are most closely related to low-level disorder in the community. The amendments would make the powers significantly wider, although I appreciate the argument about emergency circumstances. It is slightly bizarre to say that an ACSO should be able to seize a person's motor vehicle, but not ask for their name and address—to use the Opposition's position from two debates. 
 We intend—I hope hon. Members will bear this in mind when we discuss the new clause—to introduce a clause that allows new powers to be given to ACSOs and CSOs with appropriate safeguards, in the light of experience and subject to affirmative resolution. If we deal with the issue through only primary legislation, it is difficult to be absolutely certain about the right split of powers, and I hope that all hon. Members recognise that. 
 It being One o'clock, The Chairman proceeded, pursuant to Sessional Order D [28 June 2001] and the Orders of the Committee [23 May and 25 June 2002], to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair. 
 Amendment negatived.
 The Chairman then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that time. 
 Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 38 - Supplementary provisions relating to designations and accreditations

Amendments made: No. 217, in page 37, line 23, leave out 
'or accreditation under section 35 or' 
and insert 
'under section 35 or (Police powers for contracted-out staff) or his accreditation under section' 
No. 218, in page 37, line 27, after '35' insert 
'or (Police powers for contracted-out staff)'
 No. 219, in page 37, line 37, after '35' insert 
', (Police powers for contracted-out staff)'
 No. 220, in page 37, line 40, at end insert— 
 '(4A) Where any person's designation under section (Police powers for contracted-out staff) is modified or withdrawn, the chief officer giving notice of the modification or withdrawal shall send a copy of the notice to the contractor responsible for supervising that person in the carrying out of the functions for the purposes of which the designation was granted.'.
 No. 221, in page 37, line 46, leave out subsection (6) and insert— 
 '(6) For the purposes of determining liability for the unlawful conduct of employees of a police authority, conduct by such an employee in reliance or purported reliance on a designation under section 35 shall be taken to be conduct in the course of his employment by the police authority; and, in the case of a tort, that authority shall fall to be treated as a joint tortfeasor accordingly.'.
 No. 222, in page 38, line 10, leave out 'an employee' and insert 'employees'. 
 No. 223, in page 38, line 11, leave out 'member' and insert 'employee'. 
 No. 224, in page 38, line 14, at end insert— 
 '(8) For the purposes of determining liability for the unlawful conduct of employees of a contractor (within the meaning of section (Police powers for contracted-out staff)), conduct by such an employee in reliance or purported reliance on a designation under that section shall be taken to be conduct in the course of his employment by that contractor; and, in the case of a tort, that contractor shall fall to be treated as a joint tortfeasor accordingly. 
 (9) For the purposes of determining liability for the unlawful conduct of employees of a person with whom a chief officer of police has entered into any arrangements for the purposes of a community safety accreditation scheme, conduct by such an employee in reliance or purported reliance on an accreditation under section 37 shall be taken to be conduct in the course of his employment by that employer; and, in the case of a tort, that employer shall fall to be treated as a joint tortfeasor accordingly.'.—[Mr. Denham.]
 Clause 38, as amended, and clauses 39 and 41 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 42 - Interpretation of Chapter 1

Amendments made: No. 225, in page 39, line 40, after '35' insert 
'or (Police powers for contracted-out staff)'
 No. 226, in page 39, line 40, at end insert 
''Director General'' means— 
 (a) the Director General of the National Criminal Intelligence Service; or 
 (b) the Director General of the National Crime Squad; 
 ''Service Authority'' means—
 (a) in relation to employment with the National Criminal Intelligence Service or to its Director General, the Service Authority for the National Criminal Intelligence Service; and 
 (b) in relation to employment with the National Crime Squad or to its Director General, the Service Authority for the National Crime Squad.'.—[Mr. Denham.]
 Clause 42, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
It being after One o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order. 
 Adjourned till this day at half-past Four o'clock.